Re: st: Re: Speed problems on network installation

Thank you Alan. Your solution works like a charm for me, and I have forwarded
your mail to the other users on our site.
regards,
uli
Alan Riley wrote:
> Ulrich Kohler (kohler@wz-berlin.de) asks about the speed of
>
> Stata running over a network:
> > we have serious speed-problems on our 10-users-network installation of
> > Stata 8. The speed-problems seem to arise due to slow invocation of
> > ado-files and help-files. Stata takes sometimes more than 10 seconds to
> > show up help-files, and I guess that this is the same with the definition
> > of programs in ado-files. Given that the new graphs require many
> > invocation of external programs and of the help-system it is quite
> > painful to work with Stata on our network installation.
> >
> > I know that the invocation of files from a network widely depends on the
> > hardware (network cable, file-server etc.) and the networking software
> > (in our case: Novell). But besides that, is there anything which can be
> > done without asking our network-administrator to change the entire
> > architecture?
>
> While more information is needed to diagnose what is going on with the
> network at Ulrich's site, I can offer a suggestion that will allow Ulrich
> and others at his site to work around the problem.
>
> Ulrich can make a local copy of all of Stata's official ado-files
> and can tell Stata to look for that local copy rather than the
> network copy all without the network administrator having to do
> anything.
>
> Stata searches for ado-files, help files, dialogs, and other files
> along a set of directories known as the "ado path". The directories
> are searched in the order shown by the -adopath- command. On my
> Linux computer, when I type -adopath-, I see
>
> . adopath
> [1] (UPDATES) "/usr/local/stata8/ado/updates/"
> [2] (BASE) "/usr/local/stata8/ado/base/"
> [3] (SITE) "/usr/local/ado/"
> [4] "."
> [5] (PERSONAL) "~/ado/personal/"
> [6] (PLUS) "~/ado/stbplus/"
> [7] (OLDPLACE) "~/ado/"
>
> When Stata needs to load a help file, ado-file, dialog, or other
> such file, it looks in the first directory listed above (and in the
> lettered subdirectories of it), then the second directory if it didn't
> find the file in the first directory, and so on.
>
> The words in capital letters to the left of the directories are
> Stata's official names for those directories, also known as "sysdirs".
> This, the sysdir "UPDATES" is defined to be
> "/usr/local/stata8/ado/updates/" on my computer. The adopath has "UPDATES"
> as its first search directory, and Stata knows that "UPDATES" maps to
> "/usr/local/stata8/ado/updates/".
>
> How does Stata know this, and how can this be changed? The -sysdir-
> command will list the mappings and let users change the mappings for
> Stata's system directories:
>
> . sysdir
> STATA: /usr/local/stata8/
> UPDATES: /usr/local/stata8/ado/updates/
> BASE: /usr/local/stata8/ado/base/
> SITE: /usr/local/ado/
> PLUS: ~/ado/stbplus/
> PERSONAL: ~/ado/personal/
> OLDPLACE: ~/ado/
>
> My guess is that at Ulrich's site, the STATA, UPDATES, BASE, and
> perhaps SITE directories are across the network on another computer.
> The slow speeds Ulrich is seeing are due to some problem finding
> or transferring files across the network from those directories.
>
> While the STATA directory is where Stata is installed, and cannot
> be changed, the rest of the directories are where ado-files are
> stored and can be changed.
>
> Ulrich should make a complete copy of the UPDATES, BASE, and SITE
> (if it exists) directories somewhere on his local computer. For
> example, he might create
>
> ~/officialado/updates
> ~/officialado/base
> ~/siteado
>
> directories where ~ is his home directory on his computer. In these
> directories he would copy the complete contents of the UPDATES,
> BASE, and SITE directories that are somewhere else on his network.
>
> Then, Ulrich can redefine UPDATES, BASE, and SITE with the -sysdir-
> command:
>
> . sysdir set UPDATES "~/officialado/updates"
> . sysdir set BASE "~/officialado/base"
> . sysdir set SITE "~/siteado"
>
> If the SITE directory is empty at Ulrich's site, he can just
> change SITE to point at the current directory:
>
> . sysdir set SITE "."
>
>
> These -sysdir- commands can be put into Ulrich's profile.do
> so that they are executed every time Stata starts. Once
> UPDATES and BASE are redefined, Ulrich can even perform his
> own ado-file updates without waiting for the network administrator.
>
>
> If Ulrich continues to have any speed issues, Stata Technical Services
> (tech-support@stata.com) will help diagnose his network configuration
> and make suggestions for improving the speed.
>
>
> --Alan
> (ariley@stata.com)
> *
> * For searches and help try:
> * http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/findit.html
> * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
> * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
--
kohler@wz-berlin.de
+49 (030) 25491-361
*
* For searches and help try:
* http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/findit.html
* http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
* http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/